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Gay couple say Uber driver kicked them out after they kissed

Randall Magill, 28, and his fiancé, Jose Chavez, 26, say a Houston Uber driver kicked them out of his car along a busy freeway at night on New Year’s Eve. The reason? A kiss.

“I wasn’t doing anything that I wouldn’t have done in public. I’m not going to embarrass myself or my fiancé by any means,” Magill told Click 2 Houston.

Magill and Chavez were attending a holiday party and ordered a car to take them home. Both say they’d been drinking.

(Photo: Click 2 Houston)

Then, according to the couple, the driver pulled off the freeway and asked them to get out. “He said, ‘I can’t take you no more.’ He was like, ‘I’m going to have to drop you guys off,’ and we said, ‘That’s fine,’” Chavez said. “I was upset. I’ve never been told not to kiss or anything.”

He left them standing beside a concrete sound barricade, and the two had to walk under the interstate bridge to the other side of the Southwest Freeway to call another Uber.

According to Magill, the driver said he’d asked a straight couple before them not to kiss in his car, but both men say they don’t believe that. “I’ve never heard of anyone being asked to stop kissing anywhere, especially when you just peck on the lips,” Magill said.

“I’ve never had a bad experience with Uber,” says Magill. “I was super-disappointed. Everyone I have ever ridden with has been very nice, very respectful. Even the ones I could tell were not so comfortable with carrying us, they were very respectful.”

Uber said it is aware of the incident as it was reported by both the driver and the two men. The company says an investigation is underway and the appropriate action will be taken.

Uber has a strict nondiscrimination policy, stating that a driver cannot deny service “based on race, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, gender identity, age or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal or state law.”